The Garden Of Bright Waters

One Hundred And Twenty Asiatic Love Poems

Translated by Edward Powys Mathers 1920

Dedication: To My Wife

INTRODUCTION

Head in hand, I look at the paper leaf;

It is still white.

I look at the ink

Dry on the end of my brush.

My soul sleeps.

Will it ever wake?

I walk a little in the pouring of the sun

And pass my hands over the higher flowers.

There is the soft green forest,

There are the sweet lines of the mountains

Carved with snow, red in the sunlight.

I see the slow march of the clouds,

I hear the crows jeering, and I come back

To sit and look at the paper leaf,

Which is still white

Under my brush.

From the Chinese of Chang-Chi (770-850).

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

AFGHANISTAN (PUS'HTO)

The Princess of Qulzum

Come, my Beloved!

Ballade of Muhammad Khan

Ghazal of Tavakkul

Ghazal of Sayyid Kamal

Ghazal of Sayyid Ahmad

Ghazal of Pir Muhammad

Ballade of Nurshali

Ghazal of Muhammad Din Tilai

Micra

Ballade of Muhammad Din Tilai

Ghazal of Mira

Ghazal of Majid Shah

Ghazal of Mira

Ballade of Ajam the Washerman

Ghazal of Isa Akhun Zada

ANNAM

The Bamboo Garden

Stranger Things have Happened

Nocturne

The Gao Flower

The Girl of Ke-Mo

The Little Woman of Clear River

Waiting to Marry a Student

A Song for Two

ARABIC

Sand

Two Similes

Melodian

The Lost Lady

Love Brown and Bitter

Okhouan

...